Thief (44 page)

“We think so,” Barnett agreed. “But we don't want to go busting in there until we know for certain.”

“What's the ETA on the drone?”

“Ten, twelve hours,” she said. “But I think we're good. Hector's not going to do a thing to her until whoever hired him hears if you stole the fountain of youth or not.”

“Not,” Monarch said.

“No?” she said, sounding disappointed.

“They think I'm dead. They also think Dokken has the secret, and ordered him to destroy it and the Ayafal tribe.”

There was a pause as she digested the information. “But Dokken doesn't have it?”

“He did, but he's dead, and his handlers don't know it.”

Barnett paused again. “Then Sister Rachel has become dispensable. She's no longer leverage.”

“Dokken's handler is waiting for proof that we're all dead: me, the scientists, and the entire Ayafal tribe. He wants pictures before he makes a payout, which I'm hoping means he'll keep Sister alive until he sees a picture of me dead.”

“Pictures? That's ghoulish.”

“In the extreme,” the thief said.

“Where are you?”

“In a helicopter on my way to Manaus,” he said. “Can you send a jet for me?”

Barnett paused. “What's your ETA there?”

“Two, maybe three hours.”

“I'll get one on the way.”

“If I give Zullo Dokken's satellite number, can he hack into it? Trace future calls?”

“I'll ask. What's the make, model, and number?”

Monarch got Dokken's satellite phone from Carson, and gave her the information.

“That it?” she asked.

Monarch thought a moment, and then said, “Give Zullo the second Cayman account number. We could have a substantial amount of cash moving into it sometime tomorrow. I want him to backtrack the transfers.”

“Got it,” she said. “I'll text you flight information when I get it.”

“Anyone ever tell you you're the best?”

“Nearly everyone I know.” She laughed, and cut the connection.

“Sister Rachel?” Santos asked, yawning.

“We may have a lead,” Monarch said, and left it at that.

They reached Tefé shortly after 10:00
P.M.
Pearl landed them on the SJB pad near the smaller helicopter Correa had used to escape the Canyon of the Moon. Monarch stood guard with Dokken's rifle as Pearl refueled using a company card. They were lifting off when an open-top SJB jeep came flying onto the brightly lit tarmac.

Out the window, he could see Correa was in the front seat. Correa spotted him in the open hold. Fear registered on his face and he ducked a moment before Monarch put two rounds through the windshield.

“Get us out of here,” the thief commanded.

Pearl swung the chopper away, heading east, and almost immediately the radio lit up with the sound of Correa cursing in Portuguese.

“What's he saying?” Monarch asked.

“To turn back, or I'm a dead man.”

“Tell him you're not turning back. You're on a mission of mercy.”

*   *   *

They were soon out over the river again. The thief felt exhausted, but knew he couldn't sleep. He dug into his shirt pocket and came up with another bunch of those leaves Gotek had given him. He stuck them in the pouch of his cheek and almost immediately felt more alert.

Monarch considered his situation. Correa had seen him. He had to assume Correa would call Barbosa. Based on what the thief overheard when Dokken was talking to his handler about wiping out the Ayafal, there was a decent chance Barbosa would, in turn, call the handler, give his ally the information. Or would he? The thief supposed it depended on their level of trust.

In any case, he felt compelled to create doubt now, a smokescreen of sorts to keep Barbosa and his ally off-balance. The thief retrieved Jason Dokken's phone from Rousseau, and hit redial.

Monarch listened to it ring four times before a man with a Midwestern accent said, “Is it done?”

“Yup,” the thief said, imitating Dokken's deep voice.

“All of them?”

“Affirmative.”

“Disposal?”

“In a location it will take an archaeologist a hundred years to find,” Monarch said, riffing on the way Dokken had spoken on the phone earlier in the day.

“Proof?”

“I have pictures. Except Monarch. We're still looking for his body.”

There was a long pause, before the man replied, “Send the other pictures now. Reynard will make immediate payment on that part of our deal. The rest will be cut when you get us the picture of the thief.”

“That works,” Monarch said, and then gave him the Cayman account number, and the routing codes.

“Nice doing business with you.”

“You as well,” the man said.

The connection died, and Monarch started to send pictures.

*   *   *

Pearl landed the helicopter on a pad at the Manaus Hospital around midnight. Monarch feared a crew of SJB men, but only medical workers came to the helicopter. They were shocked when they saw Fal-até was the patient. The thief guessed that while indigenous peoples were known to wander out of the rain forest upriver, they rarely arrived in a helicopter with a shotgun wound.

When they wheeled the comatose Ayafal woman away, Santos said, “I should go in with her. She's going to be frightened when she wakes up in the land of the demons.”

“We'll go with you,” Carson said, and Rousseau nodded.

Though they weren't happy about it, the two scientists had agreed to go along with the story of how Fal-até was wounded and that their assistants had stayed behind in the jungle.

“I'd get all your stuff out of the helicopter and secure it first,” Pearl said. “I'd think someone from SJB will be along soon, probably with police, and you don't want your stuff impounded.”

Rousseau and Carson started grabbing their gear. Pearl helped them.

“I need to find a taxi,” Monarch told Santos. “Get to the airport.”

“I haven't thanked you for saving our lives, and the tribe.”

“It was the least I could do.”

“Is there any way I can repay you?”

“The money that funded the expedition wasn't mine. So you owe me nothing.”

“And our agreement?”

Monarch thought about that. “If anything ever comes of your research, donate part of the proceeds to the Sisters of Hope.”

“Agreed, but nothing for you?”

The thief squinted. “Well, seeing as how I'll never see you again, I'd take a kiss.”

The scientist smiled shyly. “That's all you want?”

Monarch laughed. “Oh, I want so much more, Estella, but a kiss from the most beautiful woman I've ever seen will have to do.”

Santos blushed, smiled again, and walked into his arms.

Monarch gazed into her eyes and then leaned in to—

Two men started yelling in Portuguese. They were running toward them, moving very fast, and wearing SJB shirts and carrying guns.

Monarch stepped back from the scientist. “What're they saying?”

“No one move. The police are coming.”

“Pearl,” Monarch said.

The pilot jabbered at the two guards. One of them listened, but the other ignored him, walked up to within three feet of Monarch, and pointed his gun at him, shouting.

Santos started speaking, and gestured to the thief. He yelled back at her, and looked at Monarch furiously.

“He says you're an assassin,” the scientist said. “He wants you down on the ground, hands behind your head.”

“Tell him I'm a thief, not an assassin,” Monarch said, took a step closer to the man, hands out to the sides, palms exposed.

Santos translated, and the guy got confused.

Reading the name embroidered on his shirt, the thief softly said, “Ramon?”

Knowing that the sweetest sound in any language is a person's name, Monarch believed the man would lean slightly toward him. When he did, the thief twitched his injured left shoulder. The instant he saw the man's attention dart there, Monarch chopped his left hand toward the gun.

The revolver fired.

Monarch staggered and fell.

And Santos began to scream.

 

58

THOUSAND OAKS, NORTH OF NEW ORLEANS

6:30
A.M.

BEAU ARSENAULT WAS ALREADY
awake, drinking café creole in his office. On his computer screen there were photographs of dead Amazon savages, and the corpses of men and women he assumed were part of the scientific team. The mogul felt not a lick of pity as he closed the pictures and deleted them. Great politicians had no compunction about going to war and killing innocents to get what they wanted. Why should a great capitalist be any other way?

Arsenault turned to the rough memorandum of understanding he and Silvio Barbosa had worked out the evening before. It was a good deal. For a thirty-three percent stake in the future mine, he would fund all development, hire the attorneys to get around this forbidden zone bullshit, and—

His cell phone rang. The mogul looked at the screen, saw a familiar number, and hardened. Silvio Barbosa was calling. This was typical of Barbosa, agreeing to something, and then, after some thought, trying to take it back.

“A deal's a deal, Silvio,” Arsenault growled.

“Forget the deal. We have a problem,” Barbosa said. “Your thief? Monarch? He survived being thrown out of a helicopter. He killed three of my men, and it looks like he killed the entire team you sent in, and saved the tribe and the scientists.”

“What? No, I've seen—”

“I don't care what you've seen!” Barbosa shouted. “One of my men saw him alive late last night in Manaus. Monarch shot at him from one of my helicopters. He used my helicopter and my pilot to bring an Indian woman to a hospital in Manaus, and then disappeared along with the scientists.”

Arsenault felt like flinging the phone. “Your man's positive it was him?”

“No doubt.”

The mogul said, “I'll call you back.”

Arsenault immediately phoned his chief of security, told him about the call.

“Jesus,” Saunders said.

“Jesus?” the tycoon thundered. “Jesus isn't helping us here!”

“Calm down, Beau. There's still nothing that links you to any of this.”

“Really?” Arsenault shot back. “I'm looking at a deal sheet with Barbosa. It's right here on my desk.”

“But Monarch doesn't know that,” Saunders said.

“Barbosa does, and the thief sure as shit knows
his
men were in there.”

There was a long silence before his security chief said, “Give me a few hours.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Clean house,” Saunders said. “Get rid of anything that ties us to the situation.”

Arsenault said, “Be quick about it.”

*   *   *

When Sister Rachel awoke on the sixteenth day of her captivity, she felt better than she had in a week, and that made her anxious and increasingly fearful. Vargas had backed off after he'd jolted her with the Taser in front of the camera. That shock had knocked her out for hours. When she awoke she suffered mild seizures.

Vargas realized he'd gone too far. At least that's what she'd theorized. Ever since then, he had not touched her, fed her well, and even got her clean clothes and antibiotics.

Still, the missionary suspected that the stronger she got, the more likely Hector was to bring out his particular choice in torture devices again. But maybe not. Maybe circumstances had changed. Maybe Robin—

Footsteps.

The key slid into the lock. The door opened. Vargas entered carrying the tray he usually used to bring her food. She perked up, but then saw the duct tape on the tray along with the Taser.

“Want to hear something sad?” he asked, looking downcast.

Sister Rachel raised her chin, said, “What's that?”

“I got word last night about your boy, Robin?”

“Yes?” she said, feeling a knot in her stomach.

Vargas snorted, shook his head, said, “They're saying he's dead. Can you believe that? I was supposed to get a guaranteed crack at the motherfucker. But no, even in death, Robin Monarch steals from me.”

The missionary heard little beyond “he's dead.”

Scores of memories of Robin over the last twenty years caromed in her head. The night she'd found him bleeding out in the garbage heaps. The day he'd failed to turn his brothers toward a better life. The look in his eyes when most of his brothers came to the orphanage after all. The genuine happiness woven through his face when the children had come to sing carols to him this past Christmas.

That last one broke through the shock, and unleashed a grief that had teeth and claws that began ripping her insides out. She gasped, hunched up against the pain, and vomited on the mattress.

“No,” she groaned. “You're just trying to torment me in some new way.”

“What I was told,” Vargas said. “Hurts me as much as it hurts you.”

He began to tear strips of duct tape off and hang them from the edge of the tray. She didn't care. For the first time since she'd joined the Sisters of Hope nearly thirty years before, Sister Rachel Diego del Mar felt despair, true despair, and then a flash of anger at God. No parent wants to outlive a child, even one that is adopted.

She could sense the horrible weight of that curse pressing against her chest and wondered if it was possible to suffocate from loss.

Raising her trembling head, the tears boiling down her cheeks, she said, “How?”

Vargas sneered in mild disgust. “Way I understand it, he got thrown out of a helicopter somewhere over the Amazon.”

Sister Rachel dropped her chin, and wept until she heard a phone ring. Wiping her eyes with her sleeve, she saw Vargas check the number before holding up a finger to her.